The So-Called "Intelligence
Bill," a/k/a Patriot Act 2.5;
More on Social Security "Privatization"
BY AL MARTIN

(Dec. 13) The National Intelligence Bill, which
started out as HR-10, a 243-page document, has been
passed by the Senate as a 3,000-page act. The
principal feature of the act will be to create a
National Intelligence Czar. This bill was completed,
after compromising with various pro-DoD factions in
the House and Senate, principally led by Duncan Hunter
and John Warner, who are the closest to the defense
industry. The so-called National Intelligence Czar
will not have jurisdiction over DoD or NSA
intelligence budgets or any other intelligence budgets outside of the
CIA. In fact, the office of the new National Intelligence Czar is
specifically forbidden to act as a coordinating function between the
CIA, the Department of Defense and the National Security
Agency. The new National Intelligence Czar will not be
entitled to receive highly classified information or
briefings from Department of Defense or NSA. So what
is the purpose of this bill? I like to call it Patriot
Act 2.5

This so-called Intelligence bill is actually a
joke on the American people. The only reason it got
passed is because it's politically popular with the
9/11 crowd, which has been lulled into believing that
the creation of a so-called National Intelligence Czar
is going to solve all this country's problems when it
comes to would-be terrorist attacks. People also
believe that it is going to help secure our borders.
It isn't. And, in fact, interestingly enough, this
bill specifically reduces the CIA's budget for human intelligence
resources.

The hidden agenda, however, is not so hidden.
The official statement that Porter Goss made when he
first became CIA Director was that all CIA
intelligence now has to fit White House political
mandates. The problem with human intelligence is that
the reality of human intelligence gets in the way of political
expediency. This is why human intelligence in the CIA was virtually
done away with by CIA Director Bill Casey in the 1980s.

This was done so that the reality of human
intelligence, which could not be disputed (since it
was actually collected by the eyes and ears of people watching the
events unfold) would not get in the way of political expediency.

Interestingly enough, part of this bill is to
allow the President of the United States to have "more
direct access to a single intelligence office" instead
of having to maintain Presidential liaison functions
with DoD, NSA and CIA. Bush will now have the ability
to go to one office, the National Intelligence Czar,
to get so-called intelligence briefings and
assessments that he, formerly, as President, had to go
to the appropriate divisions of DoD, CIA, NSA, etc.
This was always a cumbersome process.

What this does is it makes the intelligence
briefings and, more importantly, dissemination, come
directly under White House control in a way that has
never existed before. This bill creates a new White
House capability to absolutely control any DoD, CIA,
NSA, etc. briefing materials. The White House now has
control over anything that winds up being publicly disseminated.
Furthermore, the "Intelligence Czar," through his own office, does not
have the ability to alter statements, public briefings, or
congressional briefings behind closed doors of DoD, CIA or NSA. The
President of the United States, though, acting through
the new National Intelligence Czar's office, does have
that ability and, furthermore, must now directly clear
all dissemination of public information.

The reason why the bill could pass and the
reason why a political compromise could be worked out
is because a new agency is being created that doesn't
have any power to do anything. Not only does it not
have any power to do anything, but it is a creation
that actually diminishes the power of the CIA. The
reason for all this is because it's politically
popular. A White House ceremony in the Rose Garden
when this bill gets signed next week with all the 9/11-survivor
relatives holding pictures of their relatives that were killed will be
a big press and photo opp.

And people will pretend they are more "secure"
now than they were before. That's what the political
mandate is: to fool the people into thinking that this actually
increases the security of the nation, when, more importantly, it makes
it easier for the White House and the Department of Homeland Security
to coordinate and manipulate information. In fact, the
exact opposite is true. It actually decreases the
security of the nation.

Why is a National Intelligence Czar's office
being created? It's being created as a political
office. It has absolutely nothing to do with
intelligence gathering, assessment, or collection. It
is simply a public relations office. Secondly, it is
an avenue wherein the President will be able to
directly control public dissemination of information
from the DoD, CIA, NSA, FBI, in a way that the
President has not had the capability to do so in the
past. Now all statements and all public
disseminations, including all sensitive materials
being submitted to congressional committees have to
pass through the National Intelligence Czar's office -
even though he has absolutely nothing to do with them.
He cannot alter them, cannot recommend them, and he
cannot even send them out. The only person he can send
them to is the President of the United States.

Basically the purpose of this is to have an
intermediary controlled by the White House between all
the different intelligence agencies. It's a discreet intermediary so
that presidential liaison officers don't have to be seen riding back
and forth in a limousine to the Pentagon or to Langley, Virginia, or
to Fort Meade, Maryland, or anywhere else. It
"confidentializes" and consolidates Presidential
control of so-called "intelligence." It consolidates,
but it also makes it quieter and more confidential.

This will cut out all of the summaries that have
to be done. This way, the President gets the raw
intelligence data, which is then subject to, not
intelligence review, but political review - by the President's own
staff. His own staff will now be directly vetting the raw information
instead of vetting what had previously been finished releases.

This bill then takes away from the Department of Defense's
intelligence operations, all of the CIA, all of the NSA, and CIA's
counterintelligence their ability to independently put into the public
domain any document, any press release, or any statement, or
any other information. Thus it quashes any potential
leaks from within the individual agencies, or
individual agents or department heads that are pissed
off about something.

It gives the White House not firmer control; it
gives them absolute control and will virtually
eliminate any possibility of leaks, and any
possibility of any of the division heads or senior
agents playing games to extract something out of the
White House.

The conclusion is that the White House is still maintaining this
subterfuge against the American people, like they did with the Afghani
invasion, like they did with creation of the Office of Homeland
Security; that this new National Intelligence Czar's
office isn't going to cost the taxpayers anything
because supposedly "the savings that CIA and DoD and
NSA are going to have will make up for any expenses."

They're putting forth the same nonsense that
they did with Office of Homeland Security. Remember
what this Regime said in February of 2002 -- Oh, no,
the Office of Homeland Security? That won't cost the
American people a dime. Furthermore, it will actually
reduce by $3 billion operational expenses of the CIA,
DoD and others.

And, of course, now, from not costing a dime,
we've created the Department of Homeland Security
which is an agency with a $39-billion budget, and the
budgets of the agencies whose operating costs were
supposed to be reduced have increase by $70 billion.

This bill should be called -- "The National
Intelligence Act, Un-Securing American Borders."

As a follow-up to last week's story on Social
Security so-called "reform" the Regime said they
backed down from what they had said last week. Again,
it shows you how disingenuous this Social Security
fraud really is.

Bush came out himself and said that there
absolutely would not be any increase in FICA taxes to
finance the conversion to a so-called Citizens Savings Accounts. He
claimed that in order to finance the so-called gap, there wouldn't be
any increase in FICA taxes. Furthermore, beyond that which the gradual
plan already adopted in 1996, there would be no increase in
benefit ages.

Bush said that what the White House prefers and
what it's going to jam down the throat of the
Democrats is this concept of having the Social
Security Administration issue between $1-3 trillion of
bonds to finance the so-called gap.

And how will this "gap" be paid for? It gets
created by the issuance of bonds. The market for the
bonds will supposedly be the same buyers as always --
foreign central banks and the same buyers that buy
U.S. Treasuries.

And here is how the scam would work. This is the
scam that the Regime is proposing. It wouldn't be a
direct U.S. Treasury paper issuance.

The SSA (Social Security Administration) would
be reclassified as a GSE (Government Sponsored
Enterprise) like Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. This would
then give the Social Security Administration the
ability to issue its own bonds, or its own paper, i.e.
GSE paper, that the Social Security Administration
would then be technically responsible for servicing.

So here's the scam. The Regime already has
returned to the dangerous Bushonian practice of
counting the so-called FICA annual surplus payments,
which are about $125 billion per annum, as general
revenue in a desperate effort to make Bushonian budget deficits look
better than they are.

It must be remembered that the Social Security Administration has
no other revenue streams to service this debt. The only possible,
possible revenue streams that the Social Security Administration as a
GSE could create, would be an increase in FICA taxes that would
be directly subordinated to the repayment of this
debt.

Yet the Regime is saying -- Oh. No, absolutely
not. There won't be any FICA taxes. But wait a minute.

Now, let's fast-forward a year ahead, and the
Social Security Administration says - Sorry. No more
no more 15% FICA. Now it's 20%. And George Bush can
say -- Oh, gee, that wasn't our decision. It wasn't
the White House's decision. We didn't want any
increase in FICA taxes. We didn't want any increase in benefit age. We
didn't want any reduction in fixed benefits. That's the Social
Security Administration's decision.

If they did it any other way, if they didn't
turn the SSA into a GSE and allowed the Treasury to
try to float the paper, then, politically, the White
House would have no out, when FICA taxes have to be
raised and when benefit age has to be increased.

The British government said last week,
interestingly enough, that the administrator of the
British National Social Security Fund, which is what
it's called in Britain, announced that Britain has
done a comprehensive study on the Social Security
Reform Act that the Bush-Cheney Regime is proposing
for the United States because the British government
was considering a variety of options to try to close
its own Social Security deficit. The British social
security system figured out in its analysis of this
Bushonian proposal of Social Security "privatization"
that, in order to maintain fixed benefits at current
rates, the age at which one could collect current
maximum benefits, as at age 65, would have to be
increased to age 93!

Age 93 would be the only way fixed benefits
could be maintained without have an increase in FICA
taxes because the reduction in fixed benefits would
create a surplus that would, in turn, service this
multi-trillion-dollar new debt that's being created and sold.

Therefore, the only way this Regime avoids a
FICA revenue loss is by saying -- Oh, you don't want a
FICA tax payment, Mr. Smith? Well, then, you've got to
wait until you're 93 to get your $863 per month.

But this 3,000 page National Intelligence Bill
monster is really nothing more than an extension of
Patriot Act, in that it dramatically increases Patriot
Act powers. First of all, it dramatically weakens the so-called Media
Shield Law under the First Amendment. It waters down confidentiality
that now exists. Whatever story a journalist is going to write, if it
is a matter of sedition or treason against the State
or any other disloyal act, then the shield no longer
applies.

Furthermore, for the first time, it specifically authorizes the
Attorney General of the United States to charge radio talk show hosts,
television talk show hosts, or anyone in the media with a "public
presence" (of course, that could be interpreted any way the
Regime wants it interpreted) This these individuals
can now be held responsible and, in fact, arrested and
charged and incarcerated for telling the American
people to rise up and take back their nation or to
form citizen protest groups or advising U.S. citizens
to publicly criticize government.

In other words, and this refers to the overly
strident and vocal radio talk show people - they
aren't doing any of their listeners a favor by telling
them "to rise up and take back their nation," or to
form protest groups and to deluge your Congressmen and Senators with
letters threatening citizen action, or to advise citizens of their
rights to form a so-called citizen grand jury.

Those who do this in an age of omnibus search
warrants, indictments, acts of grand jury proceedings,
secret arrest warrants, secret detentions, secret
trials, secret incarceration are not doing the people
any favors.

In fact, this Regime and this National
Intelligence Act is a preemptory step and an interim
step between Patriot II and Patriot III. It is giving
the Bush-Cheney Regime defacto Patriot III powers
before Patriot III is even formed as a bill yet, and
before all of Patriot II is yet in law. Specifically
this National Intelligence Bill is going to allow the
Regime to start to make examples of radio announcers
and writers who suggest that the people continue to
rise up or protest or this notion of taking back their government or
attempting to find out the truth or disseminating the truth.

A friend told me -- Just send somebody to a cell
for 3 months and you'll see how much they want to know
the truth anymore. And he's right. Because I've been
through that routine.

In the post-Iran/Contra environment, when I
became a liability and when people like me (I wasn't
the only one put through that routine) or people that
knew too much and people that were not dealt with in
the conventional manner because they weren't high
enough on the ladder to receive their briefcase, but
they were high enough on the ladder not to receive a
bullet or some other untimely end, wherein their
demise would be listed as having occurred under
clouded circumstances, as some 500 of us were.

People like me wound up in a limbo land of
having a magic line in the sand. And every time we
crossed that line by telling people too much truth, we
went through what was called at the time by the FBI
and the CIA the "standard 45-day punishment sessions."
This meant that suddenly you would be arrested for unspecified federal
charges of a security nature, which means you could be held for 45
days without charge.

So I would be held for 45 days under a false
name. I would be moved in the middle of the night to hell-hole county
jails that nobody ever heard of (I didn't even know some of them were
actual jails or not; some of these were so remote), denied access to a
telephone, denied any ability to contact my attorney,
and denied any ability to send out a piece of mail.

Then when my attorney or when members of the
media, or even when members of Congress led by
Congressman Bill Alexander went looking for me, and
actually pressured then-Attorney Generals Richard
Thornburgh and, subsequently, William Barr, only then
were my whereabouts revealed and only on the very same
day I was due to be released to avoid having people
with cameras showing up.

This was under the guise of National Security
Law. But now that we have Patriot Act, the punishment sessions are
much more sinister. The game had always been played before, for those
who knew too much and those who might say too much, that you knew what
the routine was.

You were going to get a punishment session if
you told the American people too much truth in your
radio broadcasts or in the books you wrote. And that
was the way it worked. That's the way you figured out
where the boundaries were that you are not to step
over. But everyone understood the rules of the game
and the way it worked.

Now, in the post-Patriot Act environment, where
a citizen can be now held indefinitely and
automatically under false name-no manipulation of
documents is necessary-where a citizen can be tried
secretly, can be prevented any access to an attorney,
and can automatically be kept away from any
communications capability whatsoever
post-incarceration.

In other words, no one in the world knows where
that citizen is except for a small group of people in Washington that
want that citizen there. This completely changes the nature of
punishment sessions. The refurbishment of CILFs (Civilian Inmate Labor
Fcilities) which has occurred under this Regime and
the new authority to use CILFs now ensures that we
have gone beyond what is now punishment to dissuade
people from telling the truth or to dissuade people
from telling other people, in the media, for instance,
to stand up for their rights or form protest groups.

Now we're going into an environment where it's
not just a 45-day punishment session or being moved
around to hell-hole county jails. This is something
where you could wind up in a CILF or some other
designated holding facility or detention facility.
They can't call it a prison; it has to be called a
"detention facility."

You can become now a "detainee," not a
"prisoner." This is internally, on U.S. soil. That's
>what Patriot II is all about. That's what the Internal Deportation Act
is all about, what General Primakov called the establishment of an
"American gulag." It is now possible for an American citizen who knows
too much, who speaks too much, or who criticizes the
regime publicly, to be held internally in a designated
secret detention facility forever.

So if you hear strident talk radio hosts telling
you to "rise up and break the shackles" you should be
aware of the consequences. (Also note how long those
talk radio people stay on the air).

Radio talk show hosts and citizens who call
radio talk shows and say, "How do we take back our government? Let's
rise up. I got a gun. Let's protest. I'm going to form a protest
group."-must and should be aware of the environment that we are now
in.

They should understand this new era of Bushonian
State Security and the new powers the Regime now has. Remember they
play for keeps.

* AL MARTIN is an independent economic-political
analyst with 25 years of experience as a trader on
NYMEX, CME, CBOT and CFTC. As a former contributor to
the Presidential Council of Economic Advisors, Al
Martin is considered to be a source of independent
analysis for financially sophisticated and market
savvy investors.

After working as a broker on Wall Street, Al Martin
was involved in the so-called "Iran Contra" Affair as
a fundraiser for the Bush Cabal from the covert side
of government aka the US Shadow Government.

His memoir, "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran
Contra Insider," (
http://www.almartinraw.com ) provides
an unprecedented look at the frauds of the Bush Cabal
during the Iran Contra era. His weekly column, "Behind
the Scenes in the Beltway," is published weekly on Al
Martin Raw.com, which also publishes a bimonthly
newsletter called "Whistleblower Gazette."

Al Martin's new website "Insider Intelligence"
(
http://www.insiderintelligence.com ) will provide a
long term macro-view of world markets and how they are affected by
backroom realpolitik.

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